Hello! Who are you and what newsletter did you start?

I’m Jaskaran Saini and I started The Social Juice. 

The Social Juice is a weekly marketing newsletter, every week I share a curated marketing feed filled with marketing updates and resources to help in-house marketers and creators. 

Marketing changes. I inform! 

How did you launch it and what did you do to get the first 100 subscribers?

I launched my newsletter last year in August. I had about 5,000 followers on Instagram where I was sharing my marketing insights on daily basis. But with time, I lost consistency because I didn’t have much to talk about and found myself in a creative block. 

During my time off Instagram, I was bored and wrote a quick guide to Social Media Marketing. I launched it and with the book, I got my first 100 subscribers within my first week of starting. 

After the book launched, I came up with the idea of informing people about social media trends and updates. With time, I started improving the newsletter from just informing people about social media updates, now the newsletter revolves around the marketing and advertising industry.

What does your process for creating the content look like?

My content creation process is simple yet time-consuming. Most of my competitors usually send the newsletter on Friday but for me, I send on Sundays. 

That’s why every Saturday, I sit down for like 3-4 hours and search for all marketing-related reports and updates launched within the week. 

I have bookmarked websites covering the marketing industry news and set up Google Alerts to keep track and never miss news to mention in the newsletter. 

For other sections in my newsletter, I usually have to be active on Twitter, Reddit and other platforms every week to track new tools and Events around marketing. Quite time-consuming but I love creating content for newsletter everyday. 

What tools are you using to create, send, and grow the newsletter?

From the beginning, I have used Convertkit. After the free plan was over, for a second I thought to move from Convertkit to Substack. But I find ConvertKit is really one of the best tools for newsletter growth. 

I also use Sparkloop, it’s one of the best to gain new subscribers with the help of an existing audience. 

Wordpress, just like Substack sometimes push your content to their app audience. I utilize my newsletter for not only SEO but also the Wordpress reading app which helps me to gain engaged audiences. 

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain subscribers?

I have tried most of the well-known newsletter growth hacks. But my best advice for newsletter growth is to learn content distribution and subscriber acquisition. 

My whole week is filled with reformatting my newsletter content into various content pieces that are consumable for different audiences. Turning marketing updates into conversational content to have the attention of Indie hackers and marketers that tend to be serious about their work. 

To retain subscribers, I have always focused on how to align your subscription offer with your post. I have a lot of time seen content on Indie hacker and Hacker news where newsletters are linked but the conversions are low. Because writers don’t define their need of making user sign up. That’s what I tend to focus on to grow newsletter. 

How are you doing today and what are your plans for the future?

Currently I am growing at a pace of 150-200 subscribers per week with currently being at 5,040 subscribers. 

I have a very engaged audience, and most of them are in my DMs on my different social media accounts. I’m planning for the Product Hunt launch and after that closing on Sponsorships for Q1 2023. 

Then, I will deploy ads and participate more in getting mentioned by marketing industry influencers and validating my ideas for new additions to the newsletter. 

What’s one piece of advice you’d like to share with someone who wants to get started or is just starting out?

For the newsletter creators starting out, a newsletter is completely different from your social content. With newsletter content, please focus more on fulfilling that audience and use more deep contexts. 

Have no fear of experimenting, you will have a bigger audience tomorrow with a bigger fear of pissing them off with a new experiment. That’s why you shouldn’t be afraid of testing new things. 

My last piece of advice would be if it’s growing you are on right track. When I had 1,000 subscribers someone I admire told me it’s too much content for one newsletter. Now, I have 5,000+ and still growing. Seek validation from your audience, not others. 

Where can we go to learn more?

My newsletter landing page to catch up with every trend. 

My Instagram to read the best Social Insights. 

My Social Media Blogs to have more insights!